If zombies do not rely on eating people to replenish energy, how do they sustain long periods of activity?

If what controls a zombie’s body is not a virus, but some kind of unknown organism Wen Yi mentioned, then where did it come from, and how did it suddenly appear and erupt?

Zombies do not need sleep, so lying on the bunk bed at night, Xue Ling’s mind was still full of what Wen Yi had said during the meal today.

Unfortunately, Wen Yi had only said those few sentences, then quickly put down the unfinished food and went back to continue working.

Xue Ling’s thoughts kept branching out, and when she saw a bug crawling across the tent, she thought again:

The unknown organism that infects humans and turns them into zombies sounds like some kind of parasite.

If that’s the case, does every zombie have such a “worm” inside its body?

Xue Ling uncontrollably imagined the scene of worms crawling inside her body, shuddered involuntarily, and raised her hand to rub her dry arms.

Lying beside her, Wen Jiuzhe, a huge lump of him, grabbed her arm to take a look and let out a questioning “ao” sound.

Their tent had a bunk bed with an upper and lower level. Xue Ling felt climbing up was troublesome, so she chose the lower bunk, but Wen Jiuzhe did not stay on the upper bunk either.

As soon as Xue Ling lay properly on the lower bunk, he directly lay down beside her.

A single bed, of course, could not fit two people, so more than half of Wen Jiuzhe’s body was outside. He moved two chairs to the side of the bed and rested his body and legs on the chairs.

—Even like this, he still insisted on squeezing together with her.

Xue Ling chased him to go to the upper bunk, but he poked at the tablet and indicated, “Going up there, I’m afraid I’ll crush the bed and smash you flat.”

Xue Ling said that wouldn’t happen, that this iron bunk bed was quite sturdy.

Wen Jiuzhe reached out to grab the bed frame and shook it. The creaking sounds made Xue Ling hurriedly stop him.

Not only was she afraid he would really use his brute strength to break the bed, she was also very worried that people passing by outside would misunderstand what they were doing.

Two zombies who still followed human routines lay on the narrow lower bunk for a long time. Wen Jiuzhe did not make a sound at all. If she did not know that zombies do not get sleepy, Xue Ling would have thought he had fallen asleep.

After Xue Ling secretly rubbing her arm was discovered, Wen Jiuzhe bent his knees, braced his feet on the chairs, sat up, took the tablet, and asked, “Rubbing your arm—are there bugs crawling on it?”

Xue Ling shook her head.

She took the tablet and, under the faint glow, saw Wen Jiuzhe’s current appearance. His face, turned a bluish-gray skin tone, looked a bit like a lifeless stone statue, as if touching it would make dust fall off.

She suddenly remembered to ask him, “After becoming like this, are you used to it?”

“Used to it. I’ve long envied you for not needing to eat or sleep,” Wen Jiuzhe replied.

Even though he did not speak aloud, Xue Ling could imagine the casual, easygoing way he would say this sentence.

It would make the listener feel that he truly did not care about anything.

It was only when Xue Ling saw Wen Jiuzhe watching others eat together with her during the meal that she suddenly had a concrete realization—Wen Jiuzhe had also become a zombie.

From the relief of not having lost him, she felt a complicated emotion of emptiness and helplessness.

When Wen Jiuzhe first discovered that she still had consciousness, he had once said, “As long as you’re still here, it’s fine.”

Xue Ling now had the same feeling, but she realized that this feeling was not purely happiness; there were also many regrets and a sense of melancholy.

“You also became a zombie.” Xue Ling tapped on the tablet.

Wen Jiuzhe replied to her, “How novel. I’ve been a zombie for so long, and you’re only just noticing now.”

Xue Ling: “……”

After learning from Wen Yi that Wen Jiuzhe could still speak, Xue Ling did not expose him. She just wanted to see how long this guy could keep pretending.

But tonight, as the two of them went back and forth chatting on the tablet, Wen Jiuzhe truly did not say a single word, and Xue Ling felt a bit uncomfortable again.

She knew he was deliberately acting the same way she was.

The same went for dragging her to the activity area today and walking into the crowd—it was all to take care of her feelings.

When he was still human, he would distance himself from crowds for her sake, live alone with her at the foot of an uninhabited mountain, and walk into cities full of zombies.

Now that he had become a zombie, it was again because of her that he initiatively dragged her into the crowd.

Just like what she told Wen Yi, Wen Jiuzhe was careful and considerate—it was true.

Xue Ling reached out, hugged Wen Jiuzhe’s neck, and buried herself against his skin that had turned hard and bluish.

In the past, Xue Ling rarely initiated such intimate actions, worried that she might infect him with the zombie virus. Now it did not matter anymore. She hugged him tightly and no longer paid attention to pulling her fingernails back.

Suddenly being tightly hugged by her, Wen Jiuzhe toppled onto her pillow, his feet still dangling and stepping on the ground.

One of his hands was pressed down by Xue Ling, while the other poked at the tablet, sending out questions:

“So sudden—did going out today get you stimulated by those living people?”

“Did you get sad after discovering they’re afraid of you?”

“Or did you not like their strange looks?”

Xue Ling did not lift her head, her mouth emitting indistinct, strange zombie-like murmurs.

Wen Jiuzhe fished her up onto himself, shifted to lie back in her previous position, and crossed his legs on the bed frame.

“What is it this time that’s making you want to cry? Say it.”

For some reason, the female voice from the tablet also made Xue Ling hear a hint of mockery.

She immediately lifted her head and took the tablet. “I didn’t want to cry.”

“Oh, then it’s twelve o’clock—time to start emo-ing?”

Xue Ling snatched the tablet into her hands and did not let him speak.

She typed out a passage and deleted it again. After cutting and revising for a long time, in the end she only left one sentence: “If you really don’t want to stay here, we can think of a way to leave.”

Only then did Wen Jiuzhe finally understand what had been making her uncomfortable in the middle of the night.

She had always been like this. Once she herself felt happy and comfortable, she would start worrying about whether others were also happy because of it. If others were not as happy as she was, she would feel as if her own happiness was also wrong.

“I don’t care where I am. I just find Wen Yi annoying,” Wen Jiuzhe told her.

He was afraid that if he wasn’t watching closely for even a moment, Xue Ling would be dissected by Wen Yi. That cold-hearted woman was absolutely capable of doing it.

“Don’t worry. It’s pretty good here too—no need to drive ourselves, no need to wander everywhere, no pressure at all. Don’t overthink things all day long; corpses that worry too much decay faster.”

Xue Ling: “……”

“Is it that you can’t bear that I’m leaving in a few days? You can’t bear it but won’t say it.” Wen Jiuzhe swiped on the tablet.

Xue Ling: “……”

Facing this dog-like face, she really did not want to admit that she was reluctant to part with him.

In the end, the two of them chatted about meaningless topics all night.

Neither of them could speak, relying only on typing on the tablet to chat, which made Xue Ling think of the past.

When they were dating, Wen Jiuzhe did not like typing idle chat.

Compared to people their age who liked sending messages and voice chatting, Wen Jiuzhe preferred direct phone calls, or talking face to face.

In the early days after they confirmed their relationship, when Xue Ling did not yet understand Wen Jiuzhe’s habits, she would take the initiative to make awkward small talk with him. Each time, Wen Jiuzhe’s replies were very brief.

Feeling uncomfortable because of his short replies and thinking he was too cold, she would look up, only to find that he had arrived at the door of their shared classroom.

Outside, heavy rain was falling. His hair and pants were all wet.

Xue Ling hurried over and asked him why he came. He said, “Weren’t you looking for me on your phone? You didn’t say what it was about, so I came over.”

Xue Ling was too embarrassed to say that she was only chatting with him out of courtesy because she suddenly remembered that she still had a boyfriend.

Wen Jiuzhe was still waiting for her to say what it was about, and she forced out a sentence: “Then… let’s eat lunch together.”

It seemed that from then on, he tacitly assumed that when she looked for him to chat, it was because she wanted to see him.

When Xue Ling went to the library and saw that the sunset at the edge of the sky was especially beautiful, she took a photo and shared it with him. Very quickly, he would arrive in front of her, stepping on the tail of the sunset.

Then, as if he had just woken up, with messy hair and a lazy look, he would ask her, “What is it.”

Xue Ling would then say, “Let’s go walk around the track.”

When she went out to have fun with friends and saw something interesting, she would take a photo and send it to him.

Wen Jiuzhe would directly ask, “Where are you?”

Xue Ling would instantly understand what he meant and immediately reply, “Don’t come!”

She still had to eat with her friends and did not have time to accompany him.

Later, after the two of them became closer, Xue Ling asked him, “Why are your replies always so short?”

He said, “Too lazy to type.”

Now that he had become a zombie, he was clearly able to speak, yet he held it in and did not say a word, chatting all night and typing three thousand characters.

At times like this, he was no longer lazy.

They rested at the camp for a day. The next day, they saw two vehicles drive into the camp. Several people got out and went into Wen Yi’s RV to report.

Only then did Xue Ling learn why they had set up camp here and blocked the road. It turned out they had cordoned off a place ahead to conduct experiments.

Besides researching the zombie virus vaccine, Wen Yi’s team had other research as well, such as odor agents that could obscure zombie senses. They had achieved some preliminary results, so they specifically conducted field tests in the surrounding area.

Now the test results were out, and the effect was not very ideal.

“In the laboratory, in enclosed spaces, there is some effect, but in natural environments, it doesn’t work. The drug’s confusing effect is very short-lived, less than five minutes.”

“We increased the drug concentration. At first, there was some effect, but as they breathed and sweated, they were quickly sensed by the surrounding zombies again.”

“Five test subjects—none of the results were ideal.”

As the accompanying researcher talked about this, the disappointment on his face was hard to hide.

Wen Yi listened without much reaction and only said, “Understood. You go organize the data first, and bring Luo Chun, Liu Zhe, and the others to start the second-stage tests as soon as possible.”

They had rushed to develop this earlier to equip special operations teams and increase their success rate when entering zombie cities to carry out missions.

But now that there was a better candidate to complete missions, it was no longer that urgent.

No experimental result was achieved overnight. These researchers had long been used to setbacks. Seeing that Wen Yi did not scold anyone, the young researcher who had been disappointed just moments ago quickly pulled himself together again. “Okay, I understand. We’ll continue to work hard!”

He got off Wen Yi’s vehicle and, at the door, ran straight into Xue Ling face-to-face. Caught completely off guard, he screamed and fell backward into the vehicle, landing right at Wen Yi’s feet.

Wen Yi lifted her foot and lightly kicked his shoulder. “Get up. That’s the same kind of special zombie as Zeng Yitong. It won’t bite you.”

The young man crawled up with an embarrassed face, pushed up his glasses, and said, “Oh, oh, zombie… ah? This is a special zombie?! Then can’t we use it as a control group for experiments!”

From behind Xue Ling, Wen Jiuzhe’s face appeared. He looked coldly at the researcher.

The researcher’s delighted smile froze.

Wen Yi said, “The one behind is also a special zombie, but he might bite people. Don’t provoke him for no reason.”

Wen Jiuzhe blocked the car door with a menacing stance. The young bespectacled researcher shrank back, not daring to get out of the car, and could only look toward Wen Yi for help.

At this moment, a researcher behind Wen Jiuzhe also called out from a distance, not daring to come closer. “Um… could you move aside a bit? There’s something for Doctor Wen… Mr. Zeng in the medical vehicle behind has woken up.”